Belizean diplomat replicates Tyson v. Holyfield
It was not witnessed by the global audience which tuned in to the Tyson-Holyfield fight, but an incident between a Belizean diplomat and a British national ended in much the same way. That is…with one man losing a piece of his ear. The bizarre episode unfolded on the night of Saturday, June sixteenth at the London home of Belize’s Deputy High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Alexis Rosado. Rosado was hosting a private party for a mixed group of friends and colleagues. Among them was First Secretary at the High Commission, Luis Salazar, and a British friend, Adrian Caffery, who is married to a Belizean from San Ignacio. It seems that both Salazar and Caffery has been drinking heavily and as the night wore on a friendly rivalry developed between them, first involving some one on one basketball and then degenerating into playful pushing and shoving. At some point Salazar suggested a friendly wrestling match and the equally inebriated Caffery obliged. But as the two men rolled on the grass things suddenly turned ugly. The Englishman felt a sharp pain followed by the warm trickle of blood flowing down his neck. It was then he discovered that Salazar, for some unknown reason, had bitten off the top half of his ear. Caffery was driven to the hospital where he was patched up, but will have to return at some point for plastic surgery.
News 5 spoke to the two men and found that there is virtually no discrepancy on the facts of the case. Both agree that they were drunk and that, prior to the incident, were close friends. Caffery believes that Salazar “just snapped,” perhaps owing to a dispute with his wife earlier that night. As for Salazar, a seven year veteran of the diplomatic corps who has been in London for the last twelve months, he attributes his aggressive behaviour to just “too much booze”. But while the facts are not in dispute, what follows is threatening to provoke an international incident. Salazar has offered to help pay his former friend’s medical bills–but only in accordance with his ability to pay. Caffery says that Britain’s Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority estimates the maximum value of a victim’s ear at four thousand five hundred pounds–and would like Salazar to pay a substantial portion of that amount. In a normal situation, Caffery could press criminal charges or sue for damages in a civil action, but because Salazar holds diplomatic immunity, he can neither be arrested nor sued.
According to Caffery, the problem has less to do with money than accountability. He cannot understand why Salazar is still on the job and has not been sanctioned by his employer. “It’s bizarre that he’s still working,” Caffery told News 5. “Diplomat or not, you can’t just go around biting a native’s ear off and get away with it.” News 5 tried to contact Belize’s High Commissioner to London, Assad Shoman, but learned that he was out of the country in Havana. Rosado, the deputy, said only that Shoman had been informed of the incident. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Belmopan, when contacted by our newsroom, was unaware of the encounter but later said that it was being dealt with.
